


summer sang in me a little while

by redandgold



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Bodyswap, Character Study, M/M, POV Second Person, madridistas beware, self-indulgent trash, xabi alonso apologia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 09:03:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13186815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: Your name is Xabier Alonso Olano. You believe in simple things.





	summer sang in me a little while

**Author's Note:**

> listen up whoop whoop happy new year i give you the most self-indulgent, partisan, wholly biased shit ive ever written in my life!! i mean i even put in a steppenwolf reference!!! that's the levels of self-indulgent this is, ok  
> basically i love my trash can xabi v much this is how I think of him and how I understand his face and everyone else can ----------------------  
> it's so self indulgent im not even going to put in footnotes bc im the only person who will get to the end of it  
> football prompts - word, photo, trope  
> title from [sonnet xliii](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/what-lips-my-lips-have-kissed-and-where-and-why-sonnet-xliii) by edna st. vincent millay

 

Your name is Xabier Alonso Olano. You believe in simple things. For example: the point of playing football is to win. The aim of the game is to collect as many trophies as possible. The reason anyone plays football is because they are good at it. The desire to prove yourself loyal, even when it serves no other purpose than sentiment, is a weakness.

Simple things. The ball is round, the game lasts ninety minutes. Nothing needs to be more complicated than that.

 

 

 

Here’s the thing you forget: football.

 

 

 

**i. Miguel**

 

 

 

Xabi, he says, taking your hand. I have heard so much about you.

Of course you have, you think, though you don't say this out loud. Your father has taught you how to be famous in a very small town; he has also taught you the value of silence, of listening instead of speaking. That way, he says, you make less mistakes than you notice.

Mister, you say. Your palm is smooth against his. I have heard even more about you, I am sure.

 

 

 

That's something no one's had to teach you, your disarming smile and kind brown eyes. You take the strip of steel that runs through you and caress it, until it's hidden deep inside, until you are the only one who remembers it's still there.

 

 

 

His name is Miguel Fuentes Azpiroz. Local boy, B team straight through to the seniors, gruff and dependable. He has been at Real Sociedad for so long that you aren't sure whether the club defines him or he defines the club. When people talk about him, and they do, it's invariably in the same breath as how Sociedad has been doing; _Miguel is getting on_ means they aren't doing very well, _Miguel is such a rock_ means they are.

You aren't sure if you want to be that kind of person. Someone who's been tied down to the point that _synonymous_ becomes a word bandied about in the same breath. Clubs, you know, are instruments: a recipe for lip-smacking paella, and when one recipe does not work quite so well you use it only until you find another, better one.

Still you look up to him. You're nineteen years old and everything is already dazzling in its vastness; the array of stars that visit the Anoeta delight and challenge you in equal measure, and Miguel rises above it all like a rock. Solemn, steady, unchanging even in the yo-yo life that is midtable La Liga, where a hope is just that – a hope – and giants are very far away.

You want to be a giant. That much you are clear on. You want to taste victory and champagne, you want to dance amongst confetti, and you don't care what colour or crest you wear. Everything is paella, you tell Mikel, who looks at you and can't stop laughing.

 

 

 

When you make your debut – and it's not like it's anything to shout about, the first round of the Copa del Rey against Logroñés – you think: maybe I can live like this after all. Only for a moment, but what a moment it is. You wear the number 31. Your name is announced and the home crowd roars their approval, not for you as a player but for you as a part. Miguel is wearing the number 14. He smiles at you as you jog onto the pitch, clasps his arm around you all fatherly.

Enjoy it, Alonso, he says. You wonder if his use of surname is deliberate. The last time Anoeta had heard it must have been all of seventeen years ago, matched to the way you've seen your father smile only twice, to the weight of the La Liga trophy in his hands.

That one goes to shit. Nothing much registers when you're on the pitch; sometimes you realise the ball is at your feet and then it's gone again, and you think you mustn't be doing too badly, but somehow it never seems to get anywhere near the goal. Sometimes you forget that you're playing and dream that you're floating instead, like the American superheroes you would sometimes see in comic books. The grass seems to blur under you. Everything is surreal.

It is only when they take you off after seventy minutes that the illusion falls away, the flatness and dark dull colours of how you play coming into full view. You watch as they concede a last minute goal, scrambling desperately to keep their hopes alive and falling on their knees when it isn't enough. It will never be enough, you realise. You are here, now, you are not twenty years ago; you live in an age of giants and you will never be one of them so long as you stay.

The scoreboard blinks softly. 1-0. Out of the Copa del Rey in the first round.

Miguel shakes all of your hands in the dressing room. He's been here for sixteen years, and that's nearly as old as you are, and he's never won a single thing in his life.

You think: what kind of man must you be?

 

 

 

The next morning you wake up in a room you've never been in before, next to a woman you've never seen before. She is very beautiful, the kind of person whose face belongs in a museum, who probably wears sleek dresses and attends cocktail parties with a champagne glass dangling daintily from her hand. She must be ten years older than you, at least. As you inch out of bed you notice two things. One, that you aren't wearing anything at all, and two, that it isn't your body.

It isn't your body. It's got too much muscle and sinew, the body of an athlete in his prime, not a gangly teenager who's only played one game. You brush your new hands over your new stomach and you can _feel_ that, the tips of what seem to be your fingers against what seems to be your skin. So not a dream. Naked dreams tend to confine you to public embarrassments, not private ones.

You stumble blindly around the room, looking for the toilet. The walls are too far away, you think stupidly. Everything is too big compared to your kid's bedroom with its lousy cotton sheets and midfielder posters. You finally find the bathroom and you fall against the sink, gasping.

Fuck, you mumble, and then fuck again, fuck, fuck, fuck.

You are not Xabi Alonso. You are Miguel Fuentes Azpiroz. You are thirty five years old and the captain of Real Sociedad.

 

 

 

The phone rings.

You've been lying in bed completely unmoving for the past hour, your back straight and hands clammed by your sides, waiting for her to wake up or something to happen. You knew Miguel was married, but you can't for the life of you remember her name. She stirs and you screw your eyes shut, felling her breath as she reaches her arm over you, all warm familiarity and tenderness. For a moment you feel like a thief.

Hello? Yes, yes, he's here. Sleeping. Hang on. She pokes you gently in the arm, presses her lips to your cheek. Wake up, sleepyhead.

You open your eyes. There are so many things you don't know about Miguel – what he calls his wife, whether he's a morning person, how he likes to answer the phone. Every step you take is a trap.

Hello.

Xabi.

You cover the phone and look at the woman.

I think I will take this outside.

 

 

 

Miguel doesn't sound angry or confused or upset. In fact he sounds improbably calm, which pisses you off, because only someone like him would be calm about this shit. It's even more surreal that the steadiness is coming out in your voice and the panic is coming out in his.

What the hell is this? you demand, on the verge of hysteria without knowing why. 

 It's old magic, he replies, so serious it makes you snort. Didn't your father ever tell you?

No –

You feel a brief, searing wave of anger at your father, even though you know that there was no reason for him to tell you. Miguel laughs. It's not condescending, nor is it pitiful.

You're an Alonso. All the old families of this world – there's always something. It'll pass.

When?

Tomorrow morning. He laughs again. I hope you're ready to lead training.

You have to lead training. It didn't even occur to you. Jesus.

Maybe I can – you wave a hand, helpless. – call in sick.

Xabi. The resolve in your own voice is alien to you. You are now Miguel Fuentes. You are the Captain of Real Sociedad and you are going to act that way. Like you've been wearing that shirt since, well. Before you were born.

You hang up.

 

 

 

The problem, you see, isn't that you don't know what Miguel would be like. The problem is that you know exactly what Miguel is like.

 

 

 

Training works, in a manner of speaking. All you do is rehash whatever it is you've heard Miguel say before. If there's one thing you're good at it's keeping up appearances. In some ways it's almost exhilarating, this game that you're playing, knowing you might be caught at any moment with no rational explanation. It'd make good fodder for a rag like _Marca_. Probably wouldn't make your beloved _Financial Times._

Miguel is excellent. He plays you exactly how he sees you, you realise, balancing between the precocious, starry-eyed teenager and the inch-perfect passes you have already patented. So here it is. The truth laid bare. You pat him on the shoulder and say good work and he grins at you, sardonic.

Afterwards you pull him into a conference room. It is empty and the wood strip of the table is starting to flake a little bit. He catches your line of sight, and this time the smile he gives you is a little more sad, the way you look when you get to the end of a story.

I was born here, he says. As was Periko. As were you.

I know, you say, tilting your head and looking at him. Miguel sits ramrod straight, like he belongs to the pantheon of those glorious captains you would hear about, shoulders back and chin up in simple pride. He is a simple man with simple needs. A caricature in some ways. As long as Real Sociedad need him, he will be here.

I am honoured to play for this club, you continue. I couldn't ever thank it enough for making a dream come true.

Oh, Xabi. He laughs then. It will be such a pleasure watching your press conferences in the future.

Press conferences?

Don't be coy, Xabi. I'm too old for that. He sighs, leans back, looks around. I've never left this place, you know. I watched your father play here and I wanted to play here and home was all that mattered. You are different. I can tell. You just want to play.

I want to play here too, you try, but it's the barest of half-truths and sinks into the gulf between the two of you.

He shakes his head.

One day you will get too good for the team, and then you will leave. There are different kinds of legends, you know. And I think you will be one of them.

Can't I be both? You lean forward, and everything is embarrassingly keen and idealistic, isn't it, dreaming of glory, of challenging for titles and Champions' Leagues with your hometown club. But wouldn't that be a narrative. Wouldn't that make staying worth something.

He leans forward too, puts one hand over yours. Stretches the other out to cup your face. You think, bitterly, that you have never been short of father figures.

What do you want out of this game, Xabi? What do you really want?

 

 

 

You want –

 

 

 

The next morning you wake up in your own bed, again, the smell of your father's house. There are a whole bunch of missed calls from Mikel that you don't bother replying to. On the way to training the taxi driver asks if you're related to Periko Alonso. Everything is suddenly, painfully, horribly familiar.

You finish thirteenth in the league that year. You don't play another game.

 

 

 **ii.** **steven**

 

It's Liverpool or Arsenal, says your father. Liverpool are the most successful club in English history but haven't won the league for years. Arsenal have won the last three of five.

You ask yourself for years to come what that choice really says about you.

 

 

 

Steven is there on the first day, in his capacity as club captain. You have already psyched yourself up for the traditional farce of loyalty, of pretending that _to sign a contract_ really means _to sell your soul_. Contracts last forever in football, Mikel laughs when you tell him this. Haven't you noticed?

They give both you and Luis shirts – yours is the away kit, you realise with a faint smile, wondering if they already knew.

Pictures and scarves. Your mouth forms the words like you've been practicing (of course you have): _you'll never walk alone_. Everyone is delighted. Steven, you note, smiles politely, like he's guarding something. Hello, he says when you approach him afterwards, shifting from one foot to the other, never quite meeting your eyes. The way he sticks out his hand is almost an afterthought.

Steven, you say, taking his hand. I have heard so much about you.

He laughs. Call me Stevie. The jump in his foot gets faster, and you are fairly sure that he notices you looking, even though neither of you comment. He's dressed in a dark suit and keeps moving his hands to pull at the knot of his tie. It comes undone long before he's taking the two of you to see the dressing room. His feet slow down when you go back outside and the sun blinks past the rafters, striking the grass till it gleams.

 

 

 

Only later you realise: he was _uncomfortable_.

 

 

 

His name is Steven George Gerrard. Miguel was the captain of Real Sociedad; Steven _is_ Liverpool. There is no other way to describe him. Every newspaper article you find says the same thing, even in the context of England: _Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, Gerrard who plays for Liverpool, Merseyside's finest._ Words seem almost inadequate.

You aren't jealous, but you are curious. You imagine your own name in your own newspapers. _Donostia's finest, Real Sociedad Captain Xabi Alonso_. But here is the thing, and it is a simple one: you _were_. You were and you left. No longer will you be identified with one team and one team alone, no longer will you wear one colour and one colour only. You are the captain who deserted his team because they weren't good enough.

And Liverpool –

Liverpool isn't good enough. Yet Steven is here, still, in the shadow of Manchester and London, trying to cast his own.

 

 

 

It makes you think.

It makes you wonder.

 

 

 

Three goals. Liverpool win the Champions' League in your first season and suddenly everything changes.

It is like nothing you've ever had before, heady and bright and so completely different from fighting relegation as a small club. You slide your fingers over the gloss of the trophy and you feel, suddenly, like you understand him, _why would I ever leave after a time like this?_ Everyone is singing and even you join in, pumping your fists into the air, him by your side so bright he might burst. Tonight the shadow is long.

You feast on loyalty for the first time. He reaches over to kiss you and you kiss him back, thinking that he tastes exactly how you thought he would, even though afterwards you realise you tasted nothing at all. But that night you are drunk and delirious and you kiss him again and again, without thought or regard for its implications. There is only Steven. There is only Liverpool. You will never lose again.

 

 

 

The problem with falling in love, you see, is that you start to believe.

And the problem with belief is that it isn't a simple thing at all.

 

 

 

He's not going anywhere, you know, Carra says to you once. You think he is a little drunk; his cheeks are very red and he's blinking furiously at you like he can't quite figure out your face. You're sitting at the back of the function room; it's Christmas and Steven is on stage, fumbling his way through some semblance of a speech while the team laughs at his discomfort. Once again you are struck by how awkward he is in a context that does not become him, shuffling when he ought to be kicking a ball.

You don't know why he persists until you realise that he's grateful to be up there, just happy that he gets to embarrass himself in the colours of Liverpool. It is so sentimental and maudlin that you almost laugh out loud, until you realise that you don't begrudge him of feeling that way. That if you were offered this chance, to tie yourself irrevocably to one club, to make your name something that people say on the streets in the hushed tones of reverence, you might be weak enough to say no.

Not going anywhere, Carra says again, stubbornly, and you don't know whether to admire them or pity them, these broken men and their blind devotion.

Was he not thinking of going to Chelsea?

Carra barks with what you assume is inebriated laughter. You really think he’d leave, mate? Steven bloody Gerrard? Cut him open and he'd bleed red.

All blood is the same colour, you think, though you don't say it. In the end. Steven is only a man, and those believe in simple things: the point of football is to win. Carra wouldn't have said this to you if he didn't also wonder, if convincing himself of Steven's loyalty was something he still needed to do.

 

 

 

You lose the Premier League.

You lose the Champions' League final.

You lose the Premier League.

It is a familiar refrain.

 

 

Why are you still here? you ask him. It is easier that way. He turns to you, dark circles under his eyes, and doesn't reply. Only reaches over to tangle his calloused fingers in your hair, rests his forehead against yours.  This time you are the one who leans forward to kiss him, immersing yourself in the warmth of his skin. You taste his blood. You taste the salt and iron of his blood.

 

 

 

_Why are you still here?_

 

 

 

This time the bed you wake up in is markedly more familiar. It's the room you've stumbled through blind drunk and burning up too many times to count, your hands brushing over his stubble, the space between the two of you so tight you almost felt breathless. You peel the sheets off you and look around, trying to get accustomed to the difference between your noses.

He isn't here with you. He must still be waking up in a stylish apartment along the Mersey; you hope he doesn't fall over in surprise and break anything.

By nine o'clock your – his – phone has gone off three times. You elect not to answer it. Some of it is probably you being – how would Carra phrase it delicately – an annoying prick, but some of it is that you feel strangely comfortable, even with the weight of Liverpool now on you, around you. He's let you know him in so intimate a way that you feel you could be him without even trying.

You don't look at yourself in the mirror before you leave. Somehow that takes you past a point you don't want to reach.

 

 

 

What the _fuck_ is going on, Steven hisses at you in the dressing room. He's yanked you aside and to all other appearances it's the same thing – you and him closer than air and the rest of the team giggling at you knowingly. You've managed to fool just about everyone so far, even if Carra squinted at you a little suspiciously; you don't know whether that's by virtue of your natural duplicity or his natural straightforwardness. Or both.

Relax, Steven, is what you say. This has happened before. It will pass.

He looks at you like he doesn't believe a word, and you don't blame him. You remember waking up in Miguel's body and wanting to cry. Wanting the strange dream to be over. You remember not knowing what to do and not knowing if you would ever be yourself again. And that entire day you wanted to be yourself again.

How are we going to play later?

I know you better than anyone besides Carra, Steven. I'm sure we can – what is that phrase – wing it. Although of course we will not be on the wing.

Splitting up words, your stilted, proper English, all of it sounds so alien in his gritty Scouse accent. You pry a laugh out of him but he must notice the peculiarity of it too, because he stops and looks down at his hands.

This isn't right, he mumbles.

What isn't right is that both of you are still here, you want to say, but don't. Instead you say, I bet you had a wank.

It gets an unwilling laugh. You're the one who won't be taking your hands off me, you twat, he says, puts a hand on your shoulder and squeezes.

 

 

 

You're playing Arsenal at Anfield. It's buzzing outside – you're close enough to United to touch them, and maybe this year will be your year. The armband feels strange rested around your arm until you remind yourself that you are Steven Gerrard, not Xabi Alonso. Everything falls far more easily into place after that. You feel a sudden pang of sympathy for whoever it is who will inherit the captaincy after Steven, as if the two are almost inseparable; you feel a sudden pang of regret that one day he will have to give it up.

You walk out at the head of the players and you're hit straight with the song from the Kop and everything is the same colour and everyone dreams the same way and you think: dios, God, what is this magic. Because it is magic. You think of what Steven said: _how could I leave after a night like this?_ You have heard that before, you have seen all this before, but through his eyes it is somehow different; somehow trophies almost matter less than love.

Almost. Almost. You think that will be another familiar refrain in Steven's life for the years to come. It is strange to play as Steven though you have seen him play so many times, and in the end mimicry is not quite the same as heart. Benayoun rescues a worse situation with a last minute goal, but you are seven points behind United who have a game in hand and this is the end of it.

You troop back dreary, unwilling to admit what everyone knows. The dressing room is quiet until you realise that they are all looking at you. Steven Gerrard, Merseyside's finest. Every face is filled with adoration and love and a willingness to go on to the end; even, you blanch, your own.

It doesn't sit right. You come to the sudden understanding that how you see him is wholly different from how he sees you.

Lads, you say in the unfamiliar accent – it isn't the only thing that's unfamiliar – the more you try the more it confuses you. It was a tough game, but we're still closing in. You know that. We can win this. You spin them on the tale of redemption and revenge, taking after the vein of Steven's talks, talks that you have heard over and over again and almost made the mistake of believing.

Do you think we'll win it, he says, quiet, after. The rest of them have gone off to shower and only the two of you are left, sitting in the sprawling, empty cathedral, waiting. _And Captain Fantastic hoists the Premier League trophy in the air –_

You wonder how honest you ought to be. No, you say. To hear the admission in the voice of Steven Gerrard sounds like betrayal. But it is because you _are_ him that you work up enough courage to say it; life is strange, football is everything, simple and complex and neither.

He looks away. Are you leaving, he says. None of these have been questions, and they sound even more flat in your own voice, stilted and unsure even now.

Yes, you say.

The trace of a smile pulls at his face, eerily reminiscent of your half-grins that don't mean anything. Should I leave?

It's funny; your voice has never cracked in your life but it does now in his, so easily. He sounds too old for his age. He looks too old for his age. You would be better for it, is what you say, and he looks back you and laughs, in the startled delight of a child.

 

 

 

Mourinho will call you later when you are still Steven and you will find this immensely, wonderfully stupid. He will ask you to come to Madrid to play for him and you will say no. Without hesitation or spite. It is as self-evident as gravity. Tomorrow you will wake up and say yes to the exact same question. But today – only for today – you lose yourself in the red, pretending that some of this has meaning, that you've believed since the day you were born.

 

**iii. iker**

 

His name is Iker Casillas. He has been in love with Real Madrid for longer than you have been alive.

In some ways he reminds you of Steven, but in others they are completely different. Steven was always a little bit uncertain of himself, of the way he was tied up with the club, as if he wasn't sure whether to treat it as a given or as an honour or something in between. Iker has no such problems. Iker plays the role with the infinite grace that comes from someone who knows exactly who he is and what he's meant to be, without arrogance or assumption. He believes in simple things, too: Real Madrid is the best club in the world. This is where I belong.

You laugh, lift the shirt all the gusto that you know is expected of you, even though perhaps a few people are beginning to catch on. He is at your unveiling. He tilts his face up at you, offers a smile; it's different from Steven's, less open and more guarded, though not in a bad way. In the way a man welcomes a stranger into his home. Proud and careful all at the same time, a hand extended with a boyish earnestness that holds you. You sense you are either with him or against him, that there is white and nothing else. Steven and Liverpool were the grit of the ground but Iker is something even more monolithic, like the pale marble of Cibeles, the ghosts you drove past to get here.

No one belongs anywhere, you want to say, the sudden rush of dark bitterness that comes over you from time to time edging into the way you turn your mouth down. There’s a part of you that delights in watching systems collapse. Institutions brought to their knees.  It’s like that Hesse book you read forever ago when you were still young and impressionable, the Steppenwolf in you captivated by the pain of falling apart. You’ve watched Steven crack; you wonder what Iker would look like.

No one belongs anywhere. You swallow the mocking defiance and say _hala Madrid._

 

 

 

At the end of the first season you realise another simple thing: your current club is not the best club in the world. Barcelona is. You are by no means devoted to Madrid but your heart burns anyway, watching Messi lift the trophy your father lifted. You wonder what he must think of you, he who once played for Barcelona, he with whom the gleaming crown will always sit, never to be handed down to either of his sons. One not good enough, the other not loyal enough. Five-nil. There is only losing.  

Iker comes around and pats all of you on the shoulder, quiet, the kind of bravery you’ve always admired. You think he looks like a martyr. Like he's been suffering alone in the white shirt for so long it's come to bestow some kind of nobility. What is it with one-club captains and the way they take things – his brow is heavy on him, his brown eyes so solemn you almost forget he is not much older than you.

In that moment, you think you understand him better than you do the helpless rage of Sergio or the wide-eyed disappointment of the younger boys. This is the part of the movie where it rains. You would react exactly the same way in his circumstances, even though with you it would only be a magic trick. A copy of the people who have taught you well.

Nunca te des por vencido, says Iker, and in your mind you hear Steven’s voice, the beating of his heart as he said we go again.

 

 

 

But then – you win.

This is different from anything that's come before. Okay, so you've won the World Cup – that's something that even less people can lay claim to – you've won the Euros, both with Iker calm and commanding at your head, but those don't quite strike you as the same thing. Something you were born with versus something you chose. It's taken you more than ten fucking years, and you savour the taste of the trophy on your lips like you never want to drink anything else again.

In that moment Iker wraps his arm around you and both of you are probably pissed out your brains but you think: maybe there is a story here, maybe I will stay, maybe I will learn to love.

 

 

 

It is the same thing you said after Istanbul.

  

 

 

In a country where everything is so defined – Barcelona v. Madrid, Separation v. Unity, Mourinho v. Casillas – you sometimes wonder why you came back at all. Choosing a side isn't what you do, you with the half-smile and the steel. You stand back and say the things you have always said, that you respect the manager and the captain and the players, that you’re just happy to play. Not all of it a lie.

Only later you realise that not choosing a side was being on one anyway. Everything is white, unless it isn't. Sometimes there is more to football than just winning games; you're still working that part out, and this is mostly your fault, but you still feel a twinge of dissatisfaction pull at your chest when you offer small talk at the Christmas party and he turns away.

 

 

 

My future is at Real Madrid, he says. I have a contract with the club and I've been here since I was nine years old. It's been my club for my whole life and it's where I want to be.

You have an answer to your question. This is what he looks like.

 

 

 

You don't tell him in advance; at first it was because you weren't sure if you should, later it was because you weren't sure if you wanted to. You wake up and Sara is with you this time, the sheets are white – of course – the room is. You raise a hand to your face and run it over your unfamiliar jaw, experiment with the way the balance in this body is different. It is a goalkeeper's balance. The way he stands, tilts, holds his hands in front of him.

Go back to sleep, Sara murmurs.

I have to make a call, you say.

He takes a ridiculous amount of time to pick up. You've wandered outside and drum your fingers along the brick wall, everything still unfamiliar. This isn't the hard shock of Miguel or the quiet comfort of Steven. This feels like you're trespassing, like you've taken something that isn't yours. Perhaps the story. Martyrdom. You remember Rafa saying, without a trace of regret, I want to sell you.

The ringing finally stops. Who is this, he says. Three times and you still aren't used to hearing your own voice.

I have caller ID, you know.

Smug amusement does not fit Iker's.

Alonso?

Sorry. I should have mentioned.

What – that you just – _turn_ into other people? You think this was not something worth mentioning?

Not everyone, Iker. Only my captains.

Are you joking? Because if you are it's not very funny –

No jokes. I'm outside your house. Should I come over?

There's a pause, and then he says, all right.

 

 

 

He opens the door. You brush past him and sink back into the sofa, looking out past the window at Madrid below. The Rio Manzanares runs quietly in the early morning. Technically your apartment is closer to the Vincente Calderón than it is to the Bernabeu, but you don’t think you'd live anywhere without water.

So, Iker says, sitting next to you.

So, you say, looking lazily back at him.

I think we should call in sick, he says. I don't know you well enough to pretend to be you.

Likewise.

You both take a few seconds to type out the texts.

He shoves his phone into his pocket and sighs. Did you tell Sara?

I just said I had to meet someone.

Okay.

He falls quiet. You watch him. He's always been easy to read, and for that same reason remarkably difficult. He looks like he’s worried about this but at the same time there are more important things; Mourinho, Perez, twenty four years at Real Madrid.

We’ll go back at the end of the day, you say, not entirely sure what you’re talking about.

He lifts his eyes to meet yours and smiles, tired. Will we?

Yeah.

What should we do for the rest of the day, then?

I don’t know, you shrug. I have FIFA.

He laughs. All right.

You start the game. He picks Real Madrid, which is no surprise. You pick Liverpool.

 

 

 

I don’t get it.

You’ve played three games and beaten him in two. It’s a nice little fantasy, everything levelled by game mechanics and who pressed a button faster. Somewhere along one of you thought to bring snacks and he turns at your comment with chips stuck in his mouth, which is unintentionally hilarious.

You can sell this. You put down your controller and tilt your head, digging your fingers into your palm. Yeah? You’re the victim. The Mister and the President are forcing you out, not the other way around. Just spin it.

The grin on his face is stretched and thin. Now it looks more like you.

I thought you were on his side.

I’m on no one’s side. You lean forward. You’re already halfway there. Leave and the fans will remember you forever.

Is that what you did with Liverpool?

You bite back whatever it is you were going to say.

Everyone thinks it’s Benitez’s fault.

Was it?

Does it matter?

It’s painfully revealing on both ends. You lick your lip and he looks away. You’d be lying if you said you felt sorry him – this, after all, is the best narrative, the illusion of loyalty that gives you the freedom of choice – so you don’t.

That’s the difference between you and me, he says. We played against each other once, do you remember. A long time ago. You were already captain then, although I’d already won the Champions’ League.

He gives you a half smile.

You were a long way outside the box, and I was watching you, but I didn’t expect you to hit it. And it was a phenomenal goal. Really, something special from a twenty-one-year old. I didn’t even set myself for it and then it was past me. You were the best player on the pitch by a mile and it showed.

So?

So then you left, because you were the best player. And you were too good for Liverpool. That’s fair. I might have done the same if I were – he looks down at the body that is not his and laughs. Well.

You raise an eyebrow. Don’t you want to be loved?

He meets your eye and suddenly everything is made plain; if you don’t understand him at least you can see. His jaw is set and his eyes are burning. Whatever happens this year, next year, you know it’s a moot point. It is the badge that stays forever. He says, I don’t want to be remembered. He says, I want to play.

 

 

 

In the end, the image you remember of Iker Casillas is the same image that everyone remembers.

You’re almost glad that you leave before things start to get worse. For all your bluster about the end of the world, you can’t bear being too close to the destruction. You win the Champions’ League and then you are on your way and you still think it’s funny some people batted an eyelid. He doesn’t say anything to you when you go. You didn’t expect him to.

What you predicted comes true – Iker isn’t martyred, doesn’t go out in a wave of sympathy and sainthood, the fans singing his name defiant and self-righteous. Nor would it have fit him, to be fair. He plays and is not remembered. He plays and the fans, the club turn their backs, one by one. De-canonisation. Everything is white, until it isn’t.

So there is this, left: an empty stadium. A man in a suit. A boy with a dream, standing next to everything he’s ever dreamed of. Standing within everything he’s ever dreamed about. Waving. Bowing. Saying goodbye.

 

 

 

**iv. philipp**

 

 

I should warn you, you say dryly, I tend to swap bodies with my captains.

He gives you a look, less complete disbelief than mild curiosity. You kill people and trade?

No, it’s – it’s more like we become each other for a day. I don’t know when it’ll happen. It could be during a game.

Oh. He looks you up and down. Then maybe I should start tiptoeing to practice, eh?

One thing you wouldn’t have expected Philipp Lahm to do was make you laugh.

 

 

 

When you decided to leave Madrid the world was yours for the taking. World Cup, the Euros, La Liga, the Champions’ League – anyone would have wanted you there. Steven even rang once, after the final and after you went into the studio to shake his hand. You don’t know why you did it. His voice on the phone was tentative, wistful, the way Liverpool fans always got when they talked about you. Somehow you don’t think James Dean would have been as enduring had he come back to life.

In the end you choose Guardiola. Mikel laughs when you tell him – oh, Xabi, you shit stirrer – but it isn’t only about that. You say _mia san mia_ as easily as you’ve said all the other slogans before that, and you watch Philipp’s face as you say it. Nothing changes. It’s impressive.

Then again, this is your fourth club and they ought to know what they’re buying by now. Why you’re here. The simple things – winning trophies, playing football. And Bayern play very beautiful football.

More than anything that’s come before, this is a contract between two parties who know exactly what they’re getting. You are now officially a mercenary and that is fine. No silly expectations, or warring factions. You pull on the shirt and feel a faint tremor of expectation running down your spine, one that has a little bit to do with the man Guardiola calls the cleverest player he’s ever coached. No more illusions. You are here to play.

 

 

 

You wonder, sometimes, that if you hadn’t met Philipp when you were older, whether you would get on with him as you do.

Because you do get on, and it’s very strange. It’s not uneasy; it’s not discomfiting the way it was with Iker, or respectfully standoffish the way it was like Miguel. It’s not even the tightrope you felt you were walking those last few days with Steven. It’s – new. Philipp, you’ve guessed, loves Bayern with all his heart, and even if you hadn’t guessed it Thomas was more than willing to tell you. But how he goes about that love is different; where Steven would run through a wall for Liverpool Philipp would find a door. You settle back on the pitch and watch him on the ball, every move calculated, every part of him aware.

It’s not quite something twenty-year-old Xabi would have understood. But old age has, if not dulled you, then smoothened your edges a little. Made you see complexity when all there used to be were straight lines. You know that he’s brilliant at what he does, and that he believes in what he’s doing. You know that in some ways he reminds you of yourself, thinking, watching, knowing what’s going to happen next because he’s the one that will make it happen. The difference is what you and he plan for. _Who_ you and he plan for.

With other people you never really had to try; all you had to do was smile, be charming, act polite. You know all the narratives by heart. The thing is so does Philipp, and you can feel his eyes burn holes into the back of your skull. Being scrutinised is not something you are used to. You realise, very early on, that you like him, and you realise that you want him to like you, and you realise that, for once, you will have to work for it.

 

 

 

That’s why you tell him up front. If he’s able to see through you then the best way to go about it is to be as transparent as possible.

Maybe he appreciates this, although you can’t ever really figure out what he’s thinking. It’s a delicious change from the one-club men you’ve known before. Iker and his tears. Steven so clear he gleams like plastic catching the sun. Miguel and never winning anything, never even getting close, again and again.

Bayern lift the Bundesliga in your first year – Bayern _walk_ to it – and you feel almost uncomfortable with the medal around your neck. Surprised, even. Like it isn’t supposed to be easy. The contract you signed was loyalty for trophies and here you are, with one, arms in the air like you were here all along.

Not what you were expecting? Philipp asks, and you realise he’s standing off to the side, arms folded and watching you in the way he does.

I’ve never won the league in my first season before, you say, which is as much of an honest answer as you can give.

You should get used to it. He grins and a curious thing happens then – it's like he turns into a little boy stepping onto the pitch for the first time, seeing a stadium clap his name for the first time. Winning a game, but not just any game, not just any team.

That's not what interests you, though. Beneath the little boy you see the man who planned it, who isn't content to win but to make sure his team wins. You see the same strip of steel that you have buried within you, only this time it is bent a different way. What you could have been.

Ask yourself this, boy with the brown eyes. If Liverpool had won the league, would you have stayed?

 

 

 

So.

It's the middle of your second year and you've signed a new contract for a third. The two of you are at some wine-bar thing with a fancy name and a fancy address. You don't actually know who asked who out – probably you, given the surroundings and the improbably French menu – but it doesn't matter. He's put his fork down.

We haven't switched yet.

You shrug.

Like I said. I don't have control over when it happens.

Your German has improved rapidly over the past year or so. It's due in no small part to Thomas and his inability to win any game of let's-keep-quiet-for-a-minute.

Maybe it won't. He catches your eye and grins, without explanation, into his drink. Happen, I mean.

The only reason I came to Bayern, Philipp, you say patiently, is so that I could turn into a short angry Bavarian.

He snorts. You like it when you make him laugh.

Too bad you can't swap with other players on the pitch. Just take over the whole of Leipzig and send them in different directions.

I would never use my powers on the football pitch.

No. He suddenly sounds thoughtful, and you catch a glimpse of triumph in his eyes. You wouldn't, would you?

Every conversation with him is a verbal game of tug-of-war, and every time you don't know who wins, or what the prize is. You give him a smile. I know you would.

You know so much about me, he grins back.

 

 

 

You’re outside the bar walking down the street, and it’s dark and the air is the crisp cold of winter that makes everyone else turn up their collars and mutter to themselves. No one is looking at you, which is, really, the only reason you lean over and kiss him.

You get the feeling that he isn’t all that surprised, because he doesn't pull away. Just stands there while you kiss him. Both of your hands stay by your sides. You feel your jaw rake across the felt collar of his coat, feel his breath warm on your skin. When you lean back you see that he's closed his eyes.

What was that for? he asks.

You shrug again. You hope it's starting to annoy him a little.

Maybe it'll speed things up.

What, kissing?

I don't know. You look at him, searching. His dark eyes. The way he frowns. He's a year younger than you and knows exactly what he wants, and for a moment you wish he could be a little less unsure of himself. What do you think?

He says, it's worth a shot, leans up to kiss you.

 

 

 

You win the league, again. You crash out of the Champions' League, again. You are starting to think that the last final you will ever play in is the one you will always remember losing, Steven feverish and shaking under your fingers.

 

 

 

I'm going to retire.

Yeah?

Yeah. This season.

Bandwagoner.

He looks at you, lazy.

Old man.

You smile, crooked.

And they lived happily ever after.

 

 

 

The day you wake up as Philipp isn’t the day you were expecting. You’d been waiting for something more dramatic – a _Klassiker_ , the press conference after announcing retirement, the game against Madrid you can’t stop dreaming about – something where you’re taught the Valuable Lesson of Loving Your Club, or whatever this is that’s supposed to do. Instead everything proceeds almost as normal. You tell the reporters that you will miss the game. That you will never stop loving it. He does the same, except the questions they ask him are about Bayern.

So all that’s left is to finish. More a trot than a gallop. There is some irony in leaving the white city to watch them win it twice, but you are used to lying in the beds that you make, thorns and roses all. After that you sit on the grass you once belonged to and tell yourself it was only ever a pit stop. Destination unknown. You imagine Iker in the stands laughing at you, can see the way his smile was warm even when it had cracked. Porto must be nice, you say to he who no longer exists. He bares his teeth. It is.

The Pokal dumps you out, unceremonious, and you screw your eyes shut, unwilling to ask the questions or say the words. Philipp is quiet that night. Fingers rough against the hollow of your neck.

You win the league. Again. It is very strange, you think, to have waited for one for so long only to be slightly disappointed now that you’ve won it thrice in a row. You sew it up by beating Wolfsburg six goals to none, the same number Stoke scores against Steven when he leaves. There are ghosts everywhere. You raise the trophy and close your eyes. People see ghosts just before they die. Missed you every day since you left, he tells you in a video where he wears the Liverbird on his chest again, so earnest you almost believe him.

The day you wake up as Philipp is _a_ day. His side of Munich is sleepy; it’s a Friday morning but people are only beginning to close their gates behind them, the lethargic post-season blues already in the air. Football is a funny old thing. It stops and it never ends.

Philipp’s point of view takes some getting used to, like walking around with your knees slightly bent all the time. You make a mental note to give him as much grief over this as possible.

You’re too tall, he says when you answer the phone.

Your lip curls into a grin. Habits always feel strange in another person’s body, but you find the half-smile fits Philipp’s face better than the rest.

Obviously.

Well. He sounds surprised. I didn’t actually think it was going to happen.

Would I lie to you?

Yes.

True.

He laughs. You laugh. You say in his sharp German, FC Bayern, stern des südens. He stops laughing. You say, ja so war es und so ist es und so wird es immer sein.

 

 

 

What will you do after this?

I don’t know. Go on a boat. Sail around. Watch a game properly.

Liverpool?

He looks at you sideways. 1860, you say, just to be annoying.

I’m going to interview Angela Merkel.

What about?

Haven’t decided yet.

Ask her if you’d make a good Chancellor.

Funny.

You’re sitting in a café somewhere near your place. Several people have noticed you, but no one comes over to ask for a photograph. Just as well. Maybe they think you’re being too sad about retirement to bother you. Philipp looks up at the sky; it’s a clear day in May, and the sun looks like it will never stop shining.

So that’s it? We’re just each other for a day?

Pretty much.

Is there a point to it?

Not really. I don’t even know why it happens.

Well. It was nice being tall.

Someone walks by wearing a Bayern shirt. He looks straight past Philipp and at you instead, his face broadening into the widest of smiles. Like it’s Christmas and not the middle of May. Reaches up to tap the crest on his shirt, just for you.

Would you ever have left? You ask when he’s gone.

He shrugs. I never had a reason to.

If they’d given you one?

You know that he knows what you’re thinking about. You’ve seen him work; Thomas has told you about the time he put himself out there, bare for the world, ready to save what he wants to save. He believes in simple things, the same things that you believe in, except somehow he’s managed to turn it into an advantage. You aren’t that kind of person. Sometimes you wish you were.

He leans over and puts a hand round your neck, brief, the way footballers do to other footballers when they’ve scored a goal. Neither of you will ever score again, you think, inexplicably amused.

They didn’t, he says. Simple.

 

 

 

The end comes very easily.

You notch an assist, which you suppose is a nice footnote to it all. Your number goes up in lights on the eightieth minute. 14. Red. Jerome comes to hug you, Thomas comes to hug you, the crowd is on their feet nodding their heads with not love but respect, and what more could you have asked for?

Philipp waits and you notice him standing there patiently, still watching you after three years. He stretches out a hand when you come towards him and you take it. Your turn, you tell him as you bury both hands in his hair, pull him into a hug. Shut up, he says. Reaches around your shoulders and digs his fingers into the cloth of your shirt. It is red, red and white.

You clap the crowd. It is red and white. You hug Ancelotti, the man who gave you a trophy twelve years ago. Everything is nostalgia and for a brief moment you hate everything, then it dissolves into the packed stands of the Allianz, here as you all know for somebody else.

He comes off seven minutes after you. You’ve saved him a spot on the bench and he takes it; after all this time you think it is still strangely satisfying that he should choose you of all people to sit next to. It's not love, and you both know that, but it's good, whatever it is.

The final whistle goes. Four one, marked onto your record forever. Xabi Alonso of Bayern Munich. You wonder if your twenty-year-old self would have seen this coming.

You go back onto the pitch afterwards, cajoled by Philipp, who's got the same kind of smile on his face as the boy in the café. They have posters of him up in the stands, him holding trophies, him with the number on his back. They are chanting his name. He looks at all of them like he never wants to forget. He looks at you like he never wants to forget.

Philipp, you lean down, shouting in his ear above the noise.

What? he shouts back, his face upturned, the stadium alive.

You open your mouth and then take a breath instead.

Nothing.

He rolls his eyes but smiles anyway, and you put an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. He leans into you. You turn away from him and look at what you have known all your life. People who love their club and people who love football and somehow, really, both.

You flatten your fingers and tap him on the chest, twice, just above his heart.

 

 

 

**v. xabier**

 

 

Your name is Xabier Alonso Olano. You believe in simple things. For example: you played some beautiful football in your time. You won some spectacular trophies in your time. You were happy with each club you played with, for a time.

And somehow –

Your name is Xabi Alonso and you will never be anyone else again. No more captains, now, just you, alone in the dark the way you like it. With the freedom to do anything you want, watch whoever you want. Contracts do not last a lifetime. Everything is paella, and you have tasted victory and champagne, danced amongst confetti, different colours and different crests. You will never belong to anyone else again.

You are in Anfield. Liverpool is playing Manchester United in three hours and you are standing in the centre circle while the television crews set up around you. You haven't told Steven, even though you're sure the cameras will catch your face later and he'll know. Carra has probably told him already, to be fair, Carra standing on the sidelines watching you with a smile on his face.

You close your eyes. Everything smells so familiar it almost makes you sick.

 _Why are you still here_?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

_Are you leaving?_

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

_Should I leave?_

You open your eyes. He is standing in front of you, hands in his pockets, cheeks red. His tie has the Liverbird on it. He raises his gaze and looks at you awkwardly, the wrinkles on his forehead worse with age.

Should I leave? he asks again, too old to be a captain, too young to be a god.

You know what you want to say. You know what you want him to do. His face is so wide, honest, the way he can't help, and your throat is so dry. You wish you could be someone else, again. You wish many things, always.

You open your mouth.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> OK I SAID I WOULDN'T HAVE NOTES BUT I LIED A BIT at least im not linking you every game!!! even tho I did look all of them up and ofc all timings, numbers, substitutions r correct 
> 
> Nunca te des por vencido - never give up  
> ja so war es und so ist es und so wird es immer sein -  
> yes it was and it is and it will always be like that
> 
> [chest tapping](http://66.media.tumblr.com/7e820039544f7aaeec0df59ce1c815bc/tumblr_o1dk6ocSFw1s1rzito2_400.gif) aka keel me  
> [substitutions!!!!!!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsN_bewAwaQ) HE HOLD HIS FACE IM SAD
> 
> xab did com back for the northwest derbie and spoiler ending HE SAY STAY STEEB STAY THEY HAVE *sabina voice* OLD MAN SEX IN THE CENTRE CIRCLE
> 
> if u made it to the end of that thank u for getting through my trash i love u a lot <3


End file.
